


Middle Age

by fid_gin



Series: The Loved 'verse [23]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:46:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fid_gin/pseuds/fid_gin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years on in the <i>Loved</i> 'verse, all three passengers of the TARDIS struggle with the first faint signs of Ten II's human lifespan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Middle Age

**Author's Note:**

> Original post date: 11/27/2008
> 
> A bit angsty, but not overly so. Oh, and implied babyfic, if you squint.

It's the end of the world.

He's in the mirror, again. Meticulously mussing, spiking and back-combing and giving a little pinch and a twirl here and there. The Doctor doesn't remember it ever taking this long to get his hair Just Right before, and wonders, not for the first time, if there's something in his now half-human genes influencing the follicles and making them misbehave. He gives a little sniff, turns one way, then the next, admiring his reflection from both angles while also making sure his sideburns are even – he has to shave more often now, as well. And then he sees it: a grey hair.

A proud little white soldier standing tall in his otherwise unmarred mane. The Doctor can't believe he missed it until now; once he sees it, it's all he can look at. In that lone grey hair, he sees longer and longer hours spent taming his soon-to-be salt-and-pepper coif. Sees deepening crow's feet and, if he's lucky, laugh lines. Sees back aches and arthritis and nights of poor sleep. Soon he'll look too old for Rose, he thinks, and when the three of them go out strangers will assume she's with the other him, and wonder who that doddering old fellow is, galumphing alongside of them as they hold hands and run.

Fixing his first grey hair with his best Oncoming Glare, the Doctor thinks to himself: _Or, maybe not._ Reaching up, he grasps it between thumb and forefinger and yanks, wincing only slightly.

********

It's the end of the world.

At least that's how he's treating it, Rose thinks, rolling her eyes at him as he leans over to inspect himself closely in the full-length mirror yet another time, making sure no more of the offending grey has appeared overnight.

“It's just a grey hair. Or...two.” He twists his head rapidly to meet her eyes with his own panicky expression. “It's perfectly normal,” she says, trying to sound reassuring. “All that stress you deal with every day - a grey hair here or there, it's fine, yeah?”

“Or _two?_ ” he squeaks, his voice rising on the last syllable, and she sighs.

“Were you always this vain?” Stifling a giggle. “You can't have always been. I've seen pictures.” And his left eyebrow raises in that slightly disconcerting manner that reminds her once again how very much the same man they are.

“Oi!” he says, drawing out the word. She steps up behind him as he continues to examine his reflection, reaches up to run her fingers through the unruly brown mop in question, and he closes his eyes and hums at the contact though his visage remains concerned.

“I think you look sexy,” she says softly, looking around his shoulder to gaze at him in the mirror. He opens his eyes to meet hers with a smoky stare, and several moments of clumsy kissing and undressing later, she finds herself fucked standing against the smoothe, cool glass.

The grey hair is, momentarily, forgotten.

********

It's the end of the world.

He knows about the grey hairs. Partly just knows, in the same way he knows that Rose has been feeling a bit whoopsy in the mornings lately and has declined to tell either of them about it yet, and partly is aware from the stray strands his double has missed plucking on the back of his head, which the Doctor sees with some frequency, he thinks with a smirk. It's a leer that dies quickly on his lips as he considers the implications of this.

Two years, the three of them have been traveling together. The Doctor is a bit taken aback that he is apparently far enough in human years that his duplicate would start showing such signs of age this early. A bit flummoxed seeing his own vanity projected onto another, the way the other Doctor has taken to examining himself in every reflective surface he passes. More than a bit disturbed at the idea of seeing himself grow old, wear out, so _soon_. He only just _got_ here.

The Doctor finds the Doctor under the console, the second sonic screwdriver he'd fashioned for him years ago clenched between his teeth. “Where's Rose?”

“Ta-fug uh baff.”

“Don't talk with your mouth full.” The other Doctor slides out and sits up, removes the sonic.

“Taking a bath.”

“She takes an unnatural amount of baths, have you noticed?”

“At least she's not painting her nails.” They grin conspiratorially at each other.

The Doctor struggles with his next words. “Did you know,” he suddenly spits out, “that the average human male can live as long as eighty or ninety years these days?” The other Doctor eyes him warily. “Which means,” the Doctor continues, “middle age could be considered as late as, say, forty-five?” A long pause. “How old do you think you are?”

“Stop it,” the other Doctor growls.

“Not more than thirty-seven, thirty-eight at the most, don't you think?”

“Does this have a point?” He slides back under the console, only the long, tailored trousers of his legs sticking out. He's barefoot again, the Doctor notices, shaking his head at the odd little eccentricities this other him has. Oh, he has his own strange mannerisms, but...barefoot? _Must be a Donna thing,_ he thinks, wiggling his own toes within his trainers.

“Probably not.” He turns to leave, not quite sure how to finish the conversation he's not quite sure he successfully started in the first place. “Replace the transeismic shell when you're finished.”

“Doctor,” he hears behind him, and turns to see his double sitting up again, his expression serious, but soft. “Thanks,” the other man says. They both smile, then simultaneously rub the back of their necks and look uncomfortable before the Doctor in brown nods quickly and leaves the room.

_Maybe not the end of the world,_ he thinks as he walks briskly off, thinking of Rose, naked and slippery from a hot bath, and then a strong cup of tea. _Maybe just the start of a new one._


End file.
